


T-Shirts

by coveredbyroses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 21:00:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17067023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coveredbyroses/pseuds/coveredbyroses
Summary: You and Sam have a difficult discussion.





	T-Shirts

The shirt’s way too big for you, but you wear it anyway. AC/DC’s logo fading along with his scent. You haven’t washed the damned thing since the last time he wore it. There’s a hole at the hem of it, just large enough to poke your pinkie through.

“Hey,” Sam greets, sliding into the bench opposite you. He set the coffee in front of you, and just the smell of it has a knot swelling at the base of your throat. He always loved his coffee in the mornings.

“Hey,” you whisper, head propped on your left hand, eyes down.

“C’mon, you gotta eat.”

You poke at your eggs, no doubt cold by now, let your fork clink loud against your plate as it drops.

“Not hungry.”

Sam sighs heavy, runs both hands over his tired face. “It’s been a month. You can’t…” His voice cuts, and he has to look away. “I miss him too, but…but we don’t get to give up. He wouldn’t want us to.”

You look up then, level your tear-swollen eyes on his. “He’s gone, Sam. It doesn’t matter what he’d want.” Your words bite, and there’s a tiny twinge of guilt in your chest after you’ve spoken them, but you mean them all the same.

“Look,” he starts, voice tired. “Maybe we just need a break. Get outta the bunker. It’s starting to feel like…like a-”

“A tomb.”

“Yeah.”

You turn your head until your chin fits against your palm, curled fingertips pressing into your upper lip. “It won’t help. Nothing is going to help.”

“Time,” Sam says after a beat. You can hear his raspy voice, but you don’t look at him. “We just need time.”

“Yeah,” you say with a cracked laugh. “A time  _machine_.” You let your hand drop to the table. “God. If I could just go back, convince him to stay in bed just a little long-” A broken sob cuts you off, and you press your palm to your mouth.

Sam reaches across the table, lays a sympathetic hand on your arm. “Hey, look at me.”

You blink quickly, try to clear the blur of tears. “You couldn’t have prevented this. No one could.”

You let your hand fall and swallow. “This wasn’t how he was supposed to go. He wasn’t even on a job! It’s not how it was supposed to-”

“I know. Believe me, I  _know_. But it happened, and the chick’s serving her time-”

“And now Dean’s just another statistic of texting and driving. And that’s  _okay_ with you?!”

Sam rears back; dumbfounded. “No, of course it’s not okay. It’s not  _okay_  that my brother was killed by a distracted driver on a goddamned  _sidewalk_. But. It. Happened.”

Neither of you speak for several moments, just sit in the thick silence of the bunker’s kitchen as hot tears spill down your cheeks.

“We can wish all we want,” Sam says finally, voice tight with pain. “If he’d stayed in bed a little longer, if he’d taken a second longer in the store. But that’s not what happened, and like it or not, we have to fucking deal.”

“I can’t.”

“You  _can_. We’re it, kid. We’ve got nothing if not each other.”

*****

You press the shirt to your face and breathe deep. It doesn’t smell like him anymore, spice and gunpowder replaced by fresh-scented laundry detergent. You fold it neat, go to set it in the donations box with the rest of his tees and flannel, but you pause. Peeling your tank off, you duck into the shirt, smooth it down, your pinkie catching on the little hole at the hem.

The shirt’s way too big for you, but you’ll wear it anyway.


End file.
